I love that "The" is used as if to say the others are faking it. They are not gods at all.
Every idolatrous culture knew that their idols were not gods, but all they "acted as if" and pretended together, to the point where it was socially unacceptable to speak against their statues. Moses experienced THE God, who spoke to him without form or image, and began by teaching him about holiness and proper behavior on holy ground. Moses didn't have to "act as if" because he saw the fire, he saw the bush, he heard the voice and the voice responded to him. He spoke to God as a man speaks to a man. He hid his face, because he was standing before pure righteousness.
Amen. We all do a little of that "as if" when we go about saying, "Well, my god would never allow (x, y or z) to happen..." but in a sense, we are imagining the god we believe in instead of reading diligently about YHVH as he speaks directly to us in the scriptures. If we do read it, we find out that he did allow the apostles to die horrific deaths, and many times "his people" would even sacrifice their own children to other gods. He did not stop them from doing it but he called his prophets to warn the evil people to stop, or warn them of impending judgement for what they are doing. He gave everyone free will and he doesn't take back his word or his gifts.
It is really great that you come here every week and take in the trinkets of Hebrew that I leave for you.
Thank you.
I love any thought provoking discussion and these posts allow me to look intently into the scripture in it's original language and every time I see it with fresh eyes, I see something I never noticed before. So thank you for posting these each week!